The present invention relates to an air cleaner arranged in an air passage of a vaporized fuel processing system.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-48015 discloses an air cleaner arranged in an air passage of a vaporized fuel processing system.
The air cleaner disclosed in the publication includes a pleated filter element that is accommodated in a housing. The filter element filters the air that flows through the housing.
In the air cleaner, when a pleat of the filter element comes into contact with the inner surface of the housing, the flow of air will be hindered at the portion where the pleat contacts the housing. This leads to insufficient filtering and lowers the filtering performance. In particular, the pressure difference between the upstream and downstream sides of the filter element would be small when the air cleaner is connected to a passage that supplies air to a canister that temporarily holds vaporized fuel. In such a case, the suction force that acts on the filter element would be subtle. Thus, there would be no constraint on the movement and deformation of the filter element, and contact of the pleat with the inner surface of the housing would easily occur.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an air cleaner that allows the filtering performance of the element to be maintained with an extremely simple structure.
To achieve the above object, an air cleaner includes a housing, a pleated filter element accommodated in the housing, and a spacing member arranged between an inner surface of the housing and one of the pleats of the filter element that is located at an end of the filter element. The spacing member maintains a space between the inner surface of the housing and the one of the pleats located at the end of the filter element.
In the above structure, the spacing member maintains a space between the inner surface of the housing and the one of the pleats located at the end of the filter element. This ensures the flow of air and maintains the filtering performance of the air cleaner.